Agents of STAR Labs
by TardisWitch
Summary: When the SHIELD team unexpectedly crash lands, they are saved by a red streak and a flaming man. They want to index these new superhumans, but what will they do when they realize they are in a world that has never heard of The Avengers? Update: Now that the new seasons have started, this is officially an AU (technically an alteration/divergence but whatever)
1. Chapter 1

AN: This takes place after season 2, except we're pretending Simmons did not get eaten by an alien rock and May didn't go on vacation. (Or maybe she did but it wasn't very long and now she's back.)

* * *

Skye sat back against her seat on the Quinjet, looking around at her team; her family. She realized now, after the fiasco of finding her parents, that she didn't need any other family. Besides, this one kept filing up with even more amazing people, she thought, smiling at Lincoln who stood beside her.

She did wish that the jet had more seats on it to accommodate the growing team. As it was, Lincoln and Mack were left standing. She, Fitz, Simmons, Coulson, and Hunter had taken all the seats. May and Bobbi were at the controls.

"Remind me why we _all_ had to come?" Mack asked irritably as a bit of turbulence almost set him off balance.

"It's a bonding experience," Coulson replied with a small smile. Mack raised an eyebrow. "We're not entirely sure what we'll be up against." Coulson said, "and we may need all of your expertise. Better to be prepared."

"You still haven't told us what we're to prepare _for_ ," Hunter complained. "You've been very vague about this whole mission.

Skye exchanged glances with Coulson across the jet. She gave a small nod in answer to the question on his face.

He nodded back. "We've found some possible evidence of a Gifted, and I want to see if we can get to them before anyone else." Coulson explained.

"So we're going to index them," Lincoln muttered, disdain lining his voice.

Skye placed a hand on his arm and look up at him, "let's not do this right now, ok?" she whispered.

He sighed, but let it go.

Skye let out a breath as well. Coulson still hadn't told anyone else about his new, top-secret project; building a team of powered people, which is obviously what he was hoping to accomplish here. She hoped he would tell them soon. Keeping it a secret was getting hard.

The flight was unusually quiet. Skye got the feeling that the team didn't fully trust Lincoln, or feel completely at east around him. He didn't completely trust SHIELD yet either. Skye hoped that would change over time. She wanted to merge both parts of her life; Inhumans and SHIELD, and integrating Lincoln seemed like a good first step.

A few minutes into the flight, Mack swore loudly as the plane shook, causing him and Lincoln to clutch their handholds to keep from falling. They jerked again and Mack yelled up front, "Hey, can't you keep this thing steady?"

"Sorry," Bobbi called back, "we're trying. But this - " she cut off, leaning forward to concentrate on the screens in front of her.

After a moment's silence, Hunter called, "What is it Bob?"

"These readings, they're..." she shook her head.

"Are they malfunctioning?" Fitz asked, sitting forward. "'Cause if they are, I could - "

"It's working just fine," May said through gritted teeth. "Please, all of you, shut up. I'm trying to concentrate." On her last word the plane jerked, then began to violently vibrate.

"What's happening?" Simmons asked.

"It looks like we've flown into the middle of some kind of storm," Bobbi informed them as the plane steadied, then was suddenly thrown to one side.

"Well what did you go and do that for!?" Hunter yelled.

"It's not as if we did it on purpose!" Bobbi shot back.

"What kind of storm is this?" Lincoln asked, trying to find his footing, "We're shaking all over, but I can't see a cloud in the sky."

There was a pause as everyone glanced at Skye.

"Hey!" she protested, raising her hands in a warding gesture. "I'm not doing this."

"No, it's not Skye," Bobbi confirmed. "The screens show outside air currents, not internal vibrations. But the currents look like their from a completely different patch of sky than the one outside our windows." she shook her head, perplexed. "I can't make any sense of it."

"Ok everyone," May interrupted. "Shut up and hold on. I think I can get us out of this, but it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

Everyone did as ordered, doing last minute checks on their seat belts; those of them that had seats, anyway. Mack and Lincoln just tried to find the most stable footing and hoped for the best.

* * *

AN: So, I've never really had a fanfic that I consistently updated: most of mine are one shots. But I will try! Every Thursday-ish probably.

Comments and critique are appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

AN: DISCLAIMER: I do not own Agents of SHILED or The Flash or any of their characters.

* * *

Caitlin was sitting back in her chair at her desk in STAR labs, eating some take-out that Cisco had ordered, when she saw something on her computer screen that made her start. She leaned forward, furrowing her eyebrows and clicking a couple things, then she reached for her phone.

"Barry," she said as soon as he picked up. "Something just crash-landed northwest of Central city. You think you could help?"

"Sure," he said.

"I'll go too," Ronnie said from the doorway. Martin Stein nodded and stood to get ready.

Caitlin smiled a bit worriedly at her husband, but said, "Oh, Barry, Firestorm will meet you out there."

"Alright," he replied, then hung up.

Barry reached the crash site a little bit before Firestorm. The first thing he noticed was that this was no ordinary plane. It was small and black; probably private, maybe government. But there were people inside and they needed saving, who ever they were.

He was about to rush over when Firestorm landed next to him. "That's not just a plane," he observed, echoing Barry's thoughts, "Could it be ARGUS?"

"I don't know, we'll worry about that later," Barry said, "Let's go."

At that moment, a woman with long brown hair stumbled out of the rubble. Barry ran over to her, grabbing her arm to keep her steady. "Are you ok?" he asked, making sure to vibrate his face and vocal chords to avoid recognition. She looked at him with confused, brown eyes, seeming to not have understood what he said. He repeated it and added, "are there more people in there?"

She blinked, then said, "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Please help, we gotta get everyone out." Urgency appearing on her face.

Barry nodded, then zoomed into the still smokey, wrecked plane. He first went to the cock pit where a tall, blonde woman was unconscious in the co-pilot seat, and a black haired woman was having trouble undoing her seat belt. Wordlessly and quickly, Barry carried them each out. Firestorm was leading out a curly haired guy, who kept asking, "Is Jemma alright?" until Barry carried out a small woman with shoulder length brown hair, who immediately went to comfort him.

Barry and Firestorm both helped an older man, who was having trouble undoing his clasps due to the fact that he had one arm. Barry assumed this was a prior injury, due to lack of freaking out. There was also an angry British man who refused their help, then ran straight to the unconscious woman as soon as he was cleared of the plane.

The girl who had originally gotten out had retrieved a blond guy from the back of the plane, where there was now a hole that Barry was pretty sure hadn't been there when he arrived. Maybe something had made it cave in.

"Is that everyone?" Firestorm asked.

They all looked around for a second, then the curly-haired guy said, "Where's Mack?"

Barry zoomed back inside and found a large black man, whose torso was stuck under fallen debris.

"You Mack?" Barry asked, as he looked around for a way to dislodge the pieces of plane that were pinning him down.

The man groaned, but nodded.

"Firestorm!" Barry called, "I'm gonna need your help." It looked like they'd have to use brute force to move this stuff.

Firestorm entered, followed by the girl with the long brown hair. Barry and Firestorm tried to lift or move the debris - Barry even vibrated against it and Firestorm melted a bit of it - but it stayed stuck, crushing Mack.

The girl stepped in front of the, "I think I can help."

"Skye," Mack said warily, "what are you doing?"

"Shut up, Mack," the girl, evidently Skye, said. She placed her hands on top of the debris and closed her eyes. The debris started to shake and Mack cried out in pain as it shifted slightly. "Sorry," Skye said through gritted teeth. The shaking increased and it began to rumble. Barry felt like he was witnessing an earthquake, confined to the broken pieces of plane in front of them. Suddenly, the debris crack, and broke into several, manageable pieces. Skye rushed forward and began clearing them off of Mack.

Barry and Firestorm exchanged a glance - that wasn't something you saw everyday - before going to help clear to broken shards away. Barry made fast work of that, then they all carefully lifted Mack and set him down outside of the plane.

"Mack, you alright?" the British man asked, leaving the blonde woman, who had woken up, for a minute.

"Peachy," Mack groaned.

"Oh, don't crowd him," the woman with the short hair, who was also British, said, shooing them all away from Mack as she knelt to check on him. She pressed on a few points on his torso, making him grunt and wince in pain. "Oh dear," she muttered, "this is not good at all."

"He probably needs medical attention," Barry said.

"Well, you're certainly right about that," she agreed, almost to herself. "With these broken ribs he might have internal bleeding, maybe even a punctured lung..."

"I could race him over to the nearest hospital," he offered.

"Ye - no," She said, suddenly standing up, "No, I don't think that would be the best idea."

"Why not?" Barry asked.

She opened and closed her mouth, obviously trying to decide what to say. "Well, we shouldn't move him. Yes, in his state we could just make the problem worse. It's best to keep him here until we can get him into an ambulance or some other sort of steady transportation."

The words sounded true to Barry, but her tone of voice made it obvious that there were other reasons that she didn't want him in a hospital.

"This man needs a doctor!" Firestorm protested.

"I _am_ a doctor!" she said fervently, "So is he," she gestured to the blond guy, who seemed surprised to be dragged into this. "We'll be fine," she assured him.

"You have no equipment," Barry said calmly, although he was becoming suspicious. Were these people criminals or something? Why didn't they want to take him to the hospital? Did this have something to do with that fact that that Skye girl was obviously a meta-human? Were they all meta-humans? "You don't even have a car," he continued, "How are you planning on treating him out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"I really would be more comfortable if you would just - " the woman began stubbornly, although by her face he could tell she knew her argument made no sense.

"Take him," the one-armed man interrupted her. The doctor looked at him, but he shook his head. "I'm not going to let a good man die." He said to her. She sighed and stepped away from Mack, who seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness.

"The rest of you will be ok?" Barry checked, as he bent down to pick up Mack fire-man style.

"We can call someone," the one-armed man assured him. "Go."

So Barry nodded, and went.

* * *

AN: Yay! Chapter 2 is complete. Any critique or comments are appreciated :)


	3. Chapter 3

AN: In answer to some questions: Hunter is most definitely British, not Australian XD and yes, Barry should've gotten them out really fast. He did. It just takes a long time to describe things.

Anywhoooo, here's chapter three!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Flash, Agents of SHIELD, or anything DC or Marvel related.

* * *

The flaming guy followed after the man with incredible speed and the team watched as the red and orange streaks got smaller and smaller.

"Sir," Simmons said, approaching Coulson, "I don't like this. I realize that Mack needs a hospital, but how do we know he'd even bing taken to one? We don't know where we are, or who we just handed him off to. SHIELD agents may not be on the government's radar anymore, but we don't know what the hospital's response will be if they find out who he is."

She paused for breath and Coulson cut her off. "I'm aware of all of that Jemma, but he also could've been dying. We just can't help him out here, so I decided to risk it."

Simmons looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she sighed and turned away.

"You really should've briefed us more," May said, stepping up beside Coulson.

He smiled weakly. "I told you I didn't know what to expect."

May was unamused, "You said it was a possible Gifted. We just saw two people who are very aware of what they can do, and very capable," May said, "and one of them can fly. With _fire,_ " She added." How could you miss _that_?"

Coulson just shrugged apologetically. He turned to the Skye, "I need you to find out as much about those guys as you can."

She immediately unslung her backpack and fished out her laptop. Then sat down on the ground and settled it in her lap.

Coulson turned back to May. "Honestly," he whispered, "we're not where we're supposed to be. The leads I was looking at indicated a very high skill set, with a _possibility_ of heightened senses. Nothing like what we just saw."

May looked at him, "where are we supposed to be?"

"A neighborhood in Manhattan." He said, looking meaningfully at the dry fields around them. Obviously not Manhattan.

"Skye, where are we?" May asked, turning to her.

"One sec," Skye said, fingers clacking the keyboard.

"How do you even have WiFi?" Lincoln asked, sitting down beside her.

"Oh, Fitz tinkered with this," she said, absentmindedly tapping her WiFi adapter.

"Yes, it was really quite brilliant," Simmons said, beaming at Fitz.

"Nah, not really. "Fitz said, scratching his ear, "all I did was - well - adapt it so it can pick up 4G data."

"Like a cell phone." Simmons added.

"Yeah, except with this I don't have to pay a monthly plan." Skye smiled. "Oh, here it is," she said to May. "Looks like we're near.. Central City."

"Central of what?" Coulson asked.

Skye squinted at the screen. "I don't know, I don't recognize anything on here. I've never heard of any of these cities. Starling City, Metropolis, Gotham..." she shook her head. "Where are we?"

"Well," Lincoln said, standing up and dusting off his pants, "by their accents we know we're in America at least."

"Oh, yeah," Hunter said sarcastically, "really narrows it down."

"Well," Bobbi said, "it sorta narrows it down. What happened exactly?" she asked, rubbing her head, "I'm still a little fuzzy on the details."

"Hunter, get her up to speed." Coulson said, "Skye, I need you all over the internet looking up information on those two men with powers. Who are they, where can we find them, and what else can they do? If necessary, hack." She nodded and got to work. "FitzSimmons," (man, it felt good to be calling them that again) "I need you to try to recover all you can from the jet. We'll need anything we can salvage. Lincoln, you can help them."

The three of them nodded and re-entered the wreck, which had finally mostly stopped smoking.

"What about us?" May asked.

"We," Coulson said, "are going to find us a ride."

* * *

AN: Yes, this chapter is pretty short and I'm sorry. It just happened that way.

Any critique and comments are appreciated! :)


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Hey guys, I know it's be forever since I last updated. Sorry! School started and life has been crazy and it doesn't help that I just wasn't feeling inspired.

Despite all that, here's chapter four!

* * *

After dropping Mack off at the ICU, Barry returned to STAR labs, where Ronnie and Martin Stein were filling Caitlin and Cisco in on what had happened.

"And then that young lady somehow made the debris vibrate, and it just exploded into pieces!" Martin exclaimed. He seemed excited and Barry assumed he was thinking of all the scientific possibilities that this implied.

"There's no way she wasn't a Meta-human," Ronnie concluded.

Barry nodded his agreement, "she's got powers, that's for sure."

"But who were they?" Cisco asked.

"I don't know," Barry said, "I had to take the guy under the debris to the ICU, but they really didn't want me to. The way the doctor girl was acting, they don't trust people. Which means they're probably up to something."

"Do you think they could be ARGUS?" Cisco asked. "Because if ARGUS is recruiting Metas, we could have a problem."

"What about ARGUS?" a voice asked, and they all turned to see Oliver and Felicity enter hand in hadn.

"We _might've_ had a run in with them today," Barry said, in answer to Oliver's question, "but we're not sure." He wanted to make it clear that it might not have been ARGUS. There was no reason they had to involve Oliver in this.

Oliver nodded pensively and there was a moment of silence, which Felicity eventually broke. "Hey guys!" she beamed at all of them. "Oliver and I were on a road trip, and I convinced him to stop by Central City, see everyone, say hi, you know."

"Hi," Oliver said with a nod.

"It's great to see you Felicty," Caitlin grinned, going over to hug her friend.

"You too!" Felicity said, "but it sounds like we walked in to some serious discussion. I don't know much about ARGUS, but I know they don't mess around."

"Yeah," Oliver agreed, "what did you mean 'might've'?" he asked.

"A plane crashed outside Central City," Barry explained, "A small plane; probably private or something. So Ronnie, Martin and I went to help."

"There was a Metahuman there," Ronnie told them. "She had some kind of... vibration manipulation powers or something."He then held his hand out to shake theirs, "I'm Ronnie by the way."

"Oh!" Felicity exclaimed, looking at Caitlin with a face that said _you have to tell me everything,_ to which Caitlin responded with a meaningful glance at Oliver. "It's great to meet you," Felicity said to Ronnie.

Oliver nodded as he shook his hand, "you've helped me out before."

"Well," Martin interjected, " _We_ helped you. Martin Stein, the other half of Firestorm."

"Right," Oliver said. He still looked a little unnerved by that concept, which seemed to amuse Ronnie and Martin to no end.

"Anyway," Cisco said, "we might have a big bad government agency recruiting powered people, and who knows what they plan on doing with them."

"They could create a whole new kind of Suicide Squad." Oliver said, almost to himself.

"A new _what_?" Barry asked, _Suicide Squad?_ Whatever that was, it couldn't be good.

"Never mind, do we know how many of them are... Metahuman or whatever?" Oliver asked.

"No," Martin said with a shake of his head.

"I just took one of their guys to the hospital," Barry said. "We could see if there's anything weird about his vitals or - "

"On it," Felicity said, moving to the computers, "Hacking into the hospital data banks should be easy, but - " she paused, fingers on the keyboard, "I have no idea what signs to look for in Metahumans."

"I can help you there." Caitlin said.

"...and I have no idea what guy I'm looking for," she finished.

"I do," Ronnie came to stand by her, smiling at Caitlin.

"Great!" Felicity said, "I have my own little team." She then turned her attention to the computer, fingers flying across the keyboard.

Barry turned to Oliver,"Sorry, I didn't mean to get you guys sucked into this," he apologized.

"It's ok," Oliver said quickly, brushing it off, but Barry could tell he wasn't too happy about the situation.

"I know you're trying to retire from the hero life, or whatever," Barry said, "I don't want to drag you back into it."

Oliver smiled sarcastically, "it seems that even when I'm not trying to be a hero, I can't really get away from ARGUS," he said. "And really Barry, it's fine. We're glad to help," he added sincerely.

"There he is," Ronnie pointed to a picture of an unconscious black man who looked pretty beat up. Felicity clicked on it and with a little more hacker-magic, she had pulled his current vitals up on the screen.

Caitlin moved in front of her and examined the screen. "Are you sure this is him, Ronnie?" she asked.

"Positive," Ronnie answered.

Caitlin shook her head, "well, he's not Meta." she sounded a little disappointed.

"Well, that one out of - how many were there?" Cisco asked.

"Nine, Barry answered.

"Nine," Cisco repeated. "So we have one definite Metahuman, and one definitely not. That leaves seven who may or may not be."

"Hopefully it's just the one girl," Martin said. "And we're still not sure if it's ARGUS."

"We could ask Diggle," Felicity suggested and Oliver shot her a look; slightly warning, slightly pained. "Lyla, I mean," she corrected herself. "I could ask Lyla. She quit ARGUS, but I could ask if she heard or saw anything before that."

"That would be great," Caitlin said.

* * *

AN: I would also like to apologize that it's taking so long for this fic to get off the ground. I promise soon the two teams will actually meet up and we can get into more story line stuff.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: I am _**really**_ sorry guys. I promised myself I wouldn't ever be the kind of writer who never updates, because I know how annoying it is to be on the other side of that. My life has just been really hectic lately, and then on top of that the new seasons started and the actual canon made it hard to retain this AU in my head and I just had no inspiration for this fic.

BUT this is here now, and I'll try to update every other weekend at least.

* * *

Coulson and May had flagged down a truck and told the driver a BS story about their van breaking down on their family road trip. Now they were all being jostled around in the truck bed on the way to Central City.

"Have you got anything Skye?" Coulson asked her. She still had her laptop open.

"Well, I found this blog was dedicated to the fast guy, they called him 'The Red Streak,' but kind of recently changed it to 'The Flash,'" she made a face at both names. "oh, and their's an article about the other guy on here too. 'The Burning Man.' Er.. Firestorm now I guess. "

"Great," Coulson said, "what do we now about them?"

"Well, the Flash is some kind of local hero; rushing in and saving the day before the bad guys can even blink." She shook her head as she kept scrolling. "How is SHIELD not already all over this guy? He's been around for over a year, and it's not like he's hiding his abilities or anything."

"We've had a busy year," Coulson reminded her, and she nodded. They hadn't really had time to worry about gifteds or enhanceds popping up in random cities, what with all of the crap they'd been dealing with within their own people, herself included.

"Anyway," Skye went back to the blog, "A lot of the incidents seem to center around a 'S.T.A.R. labs,' where a particle accelerator exploded not long before The Flash showed up."

"A particle accelerator?" Simmons asked, "haven't we dealt with one before?"

"Yeah," Fitz said, snapping his fingers. "That girl with the - the demons."

"Yes!" Simmons exclaimed, "Hannah, remember? We thought she was telekinetic but - "

"But it was really someone trapped between dimensions," May finished. "We remember."

"It was an interesting day," Coulson said to Bobbi and Hunter, who both looked a little confused by the current conversation. "But it looks like this particle accelerator may have actually given someone powers."

"A lot of someones," Skye corrected. " These blog posts are full of The Flash fighting all sorts; control of the weather, emotion manipulation, sonic powers, even someone who sounds a lot like Carl Creel - "

Coulson furrowed his brow. Missing one case of powers was one thing, but from what Skye was saying it sounded more like a kind of outbreak. That should've been on their radar, no matter how hectic the last year had been. "Skye, why don't you get us into that STAR labs place?"

"On it."

...

They told the truck driver to drop them off a motel inside Central City, where they could stay for the next little while while they dealt with the "Flash" and waited for Mack to recover. They still didn't know how they were going to get back to the SHIELD base. They'd tried to radio in, but their coms didn't seem to be working.

Simmons was sharing a two-bed room with Skye. Skye still had her laptop open and was working furiously at it, making frustrated noises every now and then. Finally she exclaimed "Aha!" and raised her arms in triumph, "I'm in."

"Terrific!" Simmons said, sitting up on her bed and turning toward Skye.

"Who ever set up their security system is _good_ ," Skye said, in almost-admiration. "But I'm better. I've shut down their alarms and such, so we should be able to waltz in there, no problem."

...

Cisco hummed to himself, lollipop in his mouth, as he crossed the main room of STAR labs. Martin Stien had gone home, Caitlin was talking to Felicity about relationship stuff, and Ronnie, Barry and Oliver were swapping hero stories, so Cisco was left to entertain himself. Which was fine by him. He'd just decided to head to where he kept his Tech stuff and tinker around - maybe make himself a new toy - when four unfamiliar faces casually strolled through the front entrance. There were two women - both with brown hair: one long the other short - and two men; a blond one and a shorter, curly haired one. They all looked like they were totally supposed to be there and definitely not trespassing.

"What - how - who are you?" Cisco demanded, taking his lollipop out of his mouth and trying to look intimidating. He was painfully aware that looking intimidating was extremely difficult while holding a lollipop, but he was trying anyway.

The long haired girl stepped forward, hand outstretched. "Hi, I'm Skye. We're from SHIELD and I promise, we don't mean any harm."

Cisco did not shake her hand, instead he backed away and shouted, "Guys! We have a problem!"

The woman named Skye dropped her hand and the four intruders shared wary glances, then they jumped as there was a streak of light and Barry appeared at Cisco's side, followed a couple seconds later by Oliver and Ronnie. Caitlin and Felicity came in from the other side.

"Hi," Skye said again, nodding at Barry and Ronnie, obviously recognizing them. "As I was saying, we're with SHIELD. We wanted to thank you for helping us earlier."

"You wanna thank someone, you send a card," Felicity said. "You don't break into their secret lab."

"How did you get in here anyway?" Caitlin asked.

Skye shrugged, "I hacked into your system and shut it down. Don't worry, I can set it back up when we're done here." Felicity seemed grudgingly impressed by this statement.

"Anyway," the other woman said. Cisco noticed that she was British, and also adorable - not that that mattered. "Besides thanking you, we also would like to analyze you," Barry and Ronnie stiffened at this. "Nothing scary," she quickly said, "just some blood and DNA samples. We'd like to understand the full extent of your powers."

"Just go with it." The blond guy said. "I'm Lincoln by the way. And its not really a big deal. They'll poke and prod you and ask a few kinda-invasive questions. But then it'll be over and we can all go home." He was trying to sound casual, but it seemed to Cisco like he _did_ feel like this was kind of a big deal.

"Why do you even want this information?" Ronnie asked, "what do you want to do, try to replicate us? Try to create more metahumas so you can add them to your team?"

" _What_ kind of humans?" Skye asked.

"Metahumans," Cisco answered, "People with powers."

Skye and Lincoln raised their eyebrows at each other. They seemed either confused or amused, Cisco couldn't tell. Maybe both?

The short, curly-haired guy shook his head, "We don't wanna make more people with powers," he had a Scottish accent and seemed perplexed that that had been their first assumption. "We just want to... confirm that you're not a threat to anyone. And we also want to be prepared, if you do become a threat, so we can - well, stop you."

Cisco didn't really like the sound of that. It sounded a bit too much like his argument for creating the cold gun, and that hadn't turned out so well. But he could also see where these guys were coming from.

"Who did you say you worked for again?" Oliver asked. He was standing in the back, arms crossed, and it was the first he had spoken throughout the entire exchange.

"SHIELD," Skye answered.

"And you're not affiliated with ARGUS?" Oliver asked.

"Who's ARGUS?" Lincoln asked, glancing at Skye like he was afraid she might be hiding something.

"I've never heard of ARGUS," Skye said, both to Oliver and Lincoln. Oliver nodded, but other than that you couldn't tell what he thought of this information.

"Who exactly is SHIELD?" Caitlin asked, sliding her fingers into Ronnie's and looking protective. "What gives you the right to pry into people's lives?"

"Wait," the Scottish guys said, "have none of you ever heard of SHIELD?"

They all shook their heads or otherwise answered in the negative.

"Geez," Lincoln said, "Have you not watched _any_ news for like, the past 2 years?"

"The Battle of New York?" The British woman said.

"The Avengers?" Skye added.

"Hydra," The Scottish guy said.

All of them were saying these things like they were supposed to be ringing some kind of bell, but none of them meant anything to Cisco. He looked at his friends but the all seemed just as lost as he was.

"Sorry," Felicity said, "We've never heard of any of that."

The four of them looked confused and a little worried, but Skye took a deep breath and moved on. "Ok, in answer to your question Miss.." she paused, looking at Caitlin for a name,

" _Dr_. Raymond," Caitlin said testily.

"Dr. Raymond," Skye repeated before continuing. "One of the main goals of SHIELD is to keep the public safe from harm. Sometimes people with powers help do that, other times they are dangerous. It is SHIELD's job to know who is out there, and which of the two categories they fall under: Helpful or harmful. And yeah, like Fitz mentioned, we like to be prepared in case any of them get out of hand. So far, that hasn't happened too often."

There was a moment of tense silence, eventually broken by Barry. "How about, in exchange for analyzing us, you let us analyze you?" he proposed.

Everyone was taken aback.

"Cisco and Caitlin here are the leading experts on Metahumans, at least here in Central City, and as far as I know, the world," he continued. "We also like to know who's out there and how to deal with it." He shrugged, "It seems fair to me."

Skye looked uneasy, as did Lincoln, but the British woman nodded. "I don't see why not," she said.

Skye shot her a glance. "We should talk to Coulson first. See what he thinks."

Lincoln and the other guy nodded, and they turned to leave. Skye looked over her shoulder before she turned the corner, "We'll be right back."

* * *

AN: So that, finally, is the update. I decided to upload it instead of writing an essay due tomorrow, so - you know, priorities.

I hope you enjoy it! I'm excited to finally be writing them interacting with each other!

Comments and critique are appreciated ^_^


	6. Chapter 6

AN: I AM EXTREMELY SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG

I'm not even gonna try to come up with legitimate excuses. I'm just sorry. But I'm here now

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to The Flash, Agents of SHIELD, or anything really.

* * *

Skye turned a few corners to make sure she was out of earshot of the STAR labs employees. Then she stopped and put a finger to her ear piece.

"Did you hear all that, sir?" she asked Coulson.

"I did," Coulson answered. "I know it sounds like a bad idea, but from what we can tell, these guys aren't bad. They've been using their powers to save innocents and stop criminals. Still keep a wary eye out, but I don't think it'll hurt to let them analyze you."

"But-" Lincoln protested.

"I know, it's invasive," Coulson said, "But we're asking the same of them. It really is only fair."

"Ok," Skye said, with a look at Lincoln. He did not look happy about the decision.

"Besides," Coulson added, "you are more than capable of handling yourselves if things get out of hand."

...

They returned to the lab and introductions were given all around. Then the Flash and Firestorm, who were named Barry and Ronnie, submitted themselves to Simmons and Fit'z scrutiny, while Skye and Lincoln warily followed Dr. Raymond, whose first name was Caitlin, and Cisco Ramon.

There was a bit of commotion as Hunter entered, wheeling a tray of tech they had managed to salvage from the jet. It was soon established that he was "a good guy" but the man named Oliver kept a wary eye on him.

After taking inventory of the undamaged items, Fitz went to Cisco to see if they had some equipment he and Simmons could use.

Simmons smiled as she watched both of their eyes light up, enthusiastically discussing the tech. Then Cisco told Barry the items they needed, and after a quick run to the tech room, they were all set.

"I have to say, your speed is just incredible," Simmons gushed. She was still generally a bit wary of super powers, but his weren't the act of some Alien weapon. His were from pure science and an accident, which made them less worrisome. "Tell me, how does your body stand it? Your must burn hundreds of thousands of calories"

"Cisco and Caitlin already figured all that out," Barry answered. "I've got an insanely heightened metabolism, but Cisco made me these protein bars that help me get through the day without needing to binge too much."

"Fascinating," Simmons said, writing down the information. She knew Barry was still feeling closed off, but he was sharing information which was all they really wanted, even if he didn't trust them.

Once all the equipment was set up she took some samples for analyses, and also asked Barry to run on the treadmill STAR labs had set up for him.

Almost everything she and Fitz found, Barry said Caitlin and Cisco had already figured out. He was obviously annoyed that they had actually gone through with his proposition, which Simmons was starting to suspect had been meant sarcastically. He hadn't actually expected Skye and Lincoln to agree to the swapping of powered people.

...

"Alright," Simmons said, turning away from Barry, "we're all done. Now it's your turn." She smiled at Ronnie.

"Wait a minute," he said, "we've got to wait for my other half to get here."

Simmons furrowed her brow in confusing. _Other half?_ "You mean your wife, Caitlin?" she asked, "I suppose we could ask her to come over but that's hardly - "

"No, I don't mean Caitlin," Ronnie said with an amused smile. "He should be here in a second."

Simmons looked to Fitz, searching for clarification, but he just shrugged and looked as clueless as she felt.

A moment later and elderly man with white hair stepped through the entrance. "Ronald?" He said, "What is it that's so urgent? And who are all these people?" he gestured to STAR labs in general, probably having run into some of the SHIELD team on his way to this room.

"Dr. Stein, these lovely scientists require a demonstration of our powers." Ronnie said, with only a hint of sarcasm.

Dr. Stein looked a bit worried as he glanced between Fitz and Simmons and back to Ronnie.

"Apparently we're supposed to 'just go with it,'" Ronnie said.

Stein raised an eyebrow, "Well, alright then." He sounded skeptical, but stepped up to Ronnie.

Ronnie fished a circular metal device out of the pocket of his jacket and strapped it to his chest, straps of metal shot out and wrapped around his left shoulder, and others reached across to the right side of his chest, ending in small red circles. Simmons barely had time to wonder at this device and what it's purpose might be, when Ronnie and Dr. Stein clasped arms.

The forms of both men suddenly blurred with light, turning to flames and melding before their eyes, until only Ronnie stood before them. He opened his eyes, which were pure white orbs, as his hands burst into flames.

Fitz dropped a tool he had been fiddling with, then dove to catch it as Simmons stepped forward, staring in awe.

" _We_ are Firestorm," he said. He stood with a powerful expression, flames pouring from his hands, for a moment.

Then he burst out laughing. "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist," he said, shaking his head and allowing his hands to extinguish. "Ah, shut up Grey, the looks on their faces made it worth it."

The moment of awe was quite broken, but Simmons was still fascinated by what stood in front of her. "Where did the other man go?" she asked, walking around Ronnie.

"Martin," Ronnie said, "he's in here," he tapped his forehead. "He talks me through tough situations," he paused, then laughed, "yeah, a bit like Jiminy Cricket, sure Doc."

"This is astonishing," Simmons said. "Combining two consciousness into one being. How? And where does the fire come in?"

Ronnie shrugged, "I'm not really sure about the science explanation, but Caitlin would probably - " he cut off abruptly, as if interrupted. "Whoa, slow down Dr. Stein!" he chuckled. "Apparently smarty-pants up here would be more than happy to explain - through me. So go ahead, take your samples or whatever. I'll try to translate."


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to anything DC or Marvel

* * *

Cisco laughed, turning away from the door post where he had been leaning and watching the other room. "Ronnie is really 'wow'-ing them," he said.

Caitlin smiled fondly as she pulled a needle out of Lincoln's arm. "What did he do?"

"It looks like he saved explanations for _after_ the merging, and the looks on their faces are priceless," he chuckled again as he moved to grab the syringe Caitlin was handing him.

"Merging?"Skye asked.

"Ronnie and Martin can become one person with the use of the Firestorm matrix." Caitlin explained, pulling up a tablet and tapping some buttons. She saw that both of the SHIELD members were confused by this statement, but she decided not to bother going into the details. "Trust me, it's complicated but the result is amazing."

"That's how they get their fire power," Cisco said.

"I can't figure out how you get your powers," Caitlin said, examining the tablet screen, which was showing DNA readings from both of their powered guests. "Your DNA looks like nothing I've ever seen. It's not human, but it doesn't have the tell-tale signs of metahumans either."

"That's because we're not Metahumans," Lincoln said, a little testily.

Skye shot him a glance that Caitlin recognized as a "keep your cool" look. "We come from a group who call ourselves Inhumans," she explained.

Lincoln look like he wanted to say more on the subject, but instead he just glared at the ground. Caitlin looked at Skye questioningly.

Skye sighed, "Long story short: there was a whole community of us, but it fell apart. I wasn't a part of it as long as Lincoln was, so it didn't hit me quite as hard, although it was still quite a blow." Her words were casual but from the slight shaking in her voice and the long breath she took after this statement, it was obvious that it was no small matter.

"I'm sorry," Caitlin said compassionately, not sure what else to say.

Skye forced a smile, "Anyway, when it comes to how we got our powers; there's this thing called Terrigenisis. Lincoln was actually my transitioner, and I'm sure he can explain it better than I can."

Lincoln started, looking up, his glare disappearing as his eyebrows shot up in surprise. He looked at Skye, almost accusatory. She rolled her eyes and mouthed something that Caitlin couldn't see, but she assumed it was something like "you don't have to tell her _everything._ " She had already guessed that they wouldn't be 100% honest with her - they were really probably only stalling so their own scientists could finish up their analysis and leave - but she'd take what info she could get.

...

During Lincoln's rather abridged and confusing explanation of Terrigenisis and Inhuman DNA, Cisco seemed to disappear. Caitlin eventually spotted him talking animatedly with the Scottish SHIELD scientist.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Skye asked.

Caitlin smiled, "knowing Cisco, it could be anything from the latest Doctor Who episode to a major break through in one of his inventions."

Skye chuckled at that,"honestly, with Fitz I could see either of them." She smiled at Caitlin, then seemed to remember where she was and turned away to go say something to Lincoln.

Caitlin sighed. They all seemed like interesting people, and she wished everyone - including herself - could push past the distrust as it seemed Fitz and Cisco were doing.

...

"This is amazing!" Cisco cried, "we have to tell everybody." He turned to go get Caitlin, but Fitz stopped him.

"Wait," Fitz said, "we need to tell _everybody,"_ then he turned and ran outside the STAR labs exit.

When he returned it was with the rest of the SHIELD team, minus Mack, who was still in the hospital. Cisco had gathered all of his friends up too, and everyone stood in two distinct groups in the main room as Cisco wheeled the clear board up in front of them, wielding his marker like a college professor.

"So," he began, "Fitz and I have been talking, and we've figured out why we were all so confused earlier. Like, how _we've_ never heard of 'the Avengers,'"

"Or how there are so many strange cities that we've never heard of here," Fitz added.

They both waited, adding suspense before the big reveal.

"They're from an alternate universe!" Cisco exclaimed.

There was a moment of confused silence, broken by Martin Stein saying, "So, you're saying the multiverse theory, that's true?"

"Yes!" Fitz responded excitedly. He turned to his friends, "so, we were on our Earth, just flying along when - BAM! - we hit some sort of breach-"

"And ended up here," Simmons said, following. "That's amazing."

"Wait, what?" Oliver said, at the same time Hunter asked "What are they on about?"

"Ok, so," Cisco turned to the board and drew a circle, "this is us."

"And this is us," Fitz said, drawing another circle beside Cisco's.

"And there are a ton of other worlds," Cisco continued, as they both added more, smaller, circles around the two big ones, "all of them similar to ours, but with varying differences."

"Like in one, Lincoln never became president ," Martin added.

"Or the colonies never rebelled and this is still Britain," Hunter said, catching on.

"Ooo! Or electricity wasn't invented for a while so there were far more steam powered inventions!" Felicity exclaimed. Oliver looked at her and she shrugged, "What? I like Steam Punk."

"Right," Fitz said. "So, somehow we traveled from our world - where we have Avengers and SHIELD - to theirs - with STAR labs, and The Flash." He and Cisco turned and labeled the two big circles, "Earth-1" and "Earth-616"

"Wait, hold on," Hunter protested, "why do _they_ get to be Earth one?"

Cisco looked defensive, "because this is the earth we're all on right now. Making it the primary one avoids confusion."

"Well, ok," Lincoln said, "but still, why not call ours Earth-2?"

"Because it's not similar enough," Fitz said. "Earth-2 would be extremely identical to this world, with the same cities and an almost.. umm" he stopped and motioned to Simmons for a word.

"An almost identical population," she finished for him. "We've never heard of Central City, or most of the others, which indicates that there must be more worlds in between ours and theirs that have more similar set ups."

Fitz nodded, ready to continue, but Coulson said, "Still, why '616?' Where did that come from?"

"Would you rather I went with Earth-19999?" Fitz snapped. "Anyway, that's not the point."

"The point is," Simmons said slowly, "we have no idea how we got here. Or how we can get back home."

This proclamation was met with a disturbed silence, as everyone processed everything that meant.

* * *

AN: If anyone didn't understand, I'm poking fun at the way Marvel comics names their universes. DC is pretty straight forward with 1,2,3 etc as far as I understand it, but Marvel's main universe is 616 and cinematic universe is 19999 and they've got anther that's like 417 and it's all very confusing XD

UPDATE: (SPOILERS FOR FLASH 2X01, ARROW 4X18, AND AOS 3X22)

I can't do it guys. Ronnie is _dead,_ Lincoln is _dead,_ Laurel _is dead,_ I can't keep living this **lie!**

(translation: maybe, one day, I'll finish writing this. I'm really sorry, but I just have no inspiration and it's really hard to write it when the canon is so far off now. Plus all of this needs major revising. I'm sorry guys. Like I said, maybe one day. But don't expect more anytime soon. I need to grieve.)


End file.
